Contemplation
by Shadowys
Summary: Watching the night sky Eve thinks of the continuation of her species. Slight fluff.


Stars flickered across the night sky, sprinkled like chalk on a black canvass. The moon was nowhere to be seen, hidden perhaps, by the clouds floating in the sky. A small breeze blew across her face, humid and cool. Eve stretched her legs as she laid on the blanket of grass, cuddling Moby and Remy, who had powered down and was lying on her chest.

As a Nasod powered by El herself, she did not really require much sleep. Most of the time, she would simply use the time her human companions use to sleep to conduct an analysis on her somatic code and check for errors. As usual, she had over two thousand non-fatal compilation errors, mostly in the self-environment interaction module. However, ever since she had advanced her code to the path of Architecture, she found these self-checks to be completely redundant since her mind would do it on the fly autonomously without needing her to power down at all.

All of which simply led to her having too much time on her hands as her human companions slept. She learnt that it was rude to watch humans sleep, so she went outside and climbed a hill to conduct her hobby, watching the night sky.

It had been ages since she last saw the night sky all alone.

Eve briefly accessed the Nasod information network. She found it comforting to be connected to millions of other minds through the network. It gave her a sense of community.

Nasods had no need for friends. There were no such thing as 'friends'. Nasods do not draw such trivial lines between self and non-self. Everyone was together in the Nasod information network and that was what mattered, unlike the humans, who drew all sorts of boundaries between themselves.

This kind of naïve thinking led the Nasods to their demise. King Nasod had not comprehended the human rationale behind not sharing the power of El. It was not that they could not, it was that they would not, and when the war started, Nasods, who had no real need to develop weapons of destruction, found themselves crushed by the human army, who specialized in such techniques.

The ancient Nasods quickly went extinct. Eve wondered if they were really reborn into this new era, if they had really accustomed themselves to the era of humans, where destruction and mistrust were rampant.

Why did they had to stoop down to such levels of primality just to continue their existence?

Eve hugged her drones closer. Her drones were now battle-ready machines, far from her toys she played with and which protected her as she ventured out in the wild in the past. They were now used to attack the opponent proactively, in the same ways as the humans used their war machines.

Machines. Such a cruel word to describe living code. Had they simply began to emulate the humans, in order to continue living as Nasods?

Eve felt something clutching her chest as she whispered sorry to her drones.

Just then, she heard the grass beside her rustle. She turned to her right to find Elsword sitting beside her, watching the night sky. He noticed her gaze and turned to look at her, his face brightening with a smile.

"Guess I would've found you here. Some kid said that he saw a scary woman with triangular ears walk up this hill."

Eve pursed her lips and turned back to watch the night sky.

"I guess that answers the question, eh? Nasods can't cry, can they?" Eve's eyes widened as she heard this. Her face would not have betrayed any emotion to him. It simply was not built to convey such information.

"Hey why do you look so surprised? You were doing the same thing Ara does when she's upset, except that you didn't cry, even though you looked like you would have. I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb, right?"

Eve arced her eyebrows. Elsword sighed, and let loose a dry laughter.

"Care to talk about it? The thing that made you sad. I promise I will listen and won't talk. That's what Rena told me about girls. They just wanted someone to listen, so I will. Just speak up whenever you're ready."

He laid down on the grass, and watched the night sky alongside Eve.

Several moments passed as both of them remained silent.

Eve snuck a look at the red haired boy beside her. What was this tingling in her chest ever since she noticed his presence? When his fingers touched her elbows just now she felt as if her system processes began to run out of memory. Multiple threads of execution began to fail. She struggled to keep her bodily functions normal as she began to gasp for air.

To know that he came looking for her simply because she was gone…it was too much for her to bear.

"Why did you came to find me?" Eve could barely heard her voice. She had to know.

Elsword turned around. Eve found his dark hazel eyes to be especially mesmerizing.

He sat up and ruffled her silver hair with his hand. The skin of his hand felt rough and warm. She felt her internal temperature rise up and was grateful for her face to be hidden in the dark of the night. It reminded her of how King Nasod had done whenever she did something worth praising when she was young.

"Well, if you really wanted to know, I've just noticed that you hadn't paid for the dinner just now."

Elword laughed heartily, before earning a slap across his cheek.

Eve sighed and concluded that she was experiencing the simple human equivalent of "anger". She walked down the hill with her drones, leaving a dazed Elsword on the hill.


End file.
